"Cupcakes Take the Cake" had another Cupcake meetup and this time it was in Hoboken, NJ! I had never been to Hoboken before and was surprised at how quick the commute was.
The plan was to stop at 3 different bakeries to pick up cupcakes and then have a cupcake picnic of sorts in a park where we could bring homemade cupcakes as well.
I decided to use this as an excuse to experiment w/ another flavor combo for the cupake kebab. Banana Split. The cake part was banana - although the recipe was good it turned out more like a banana bread texture than cake so next time I may look for something a little lighter. Then I made 3 different frostings to top them - Pineapple Buttercream, Chocolate Fudge Buttercream and Strawberry Buttercream. I used Chocolate Covered Cherries and Marshmallows (rolled and cut to look like whipped cream mounds) for spacers and then put a Marachino Cherry on top. :) The Chocolate Covered Cherries proved to be troublesome when skewered as if you didn't line it up just right they would split open and ooze. That in addition to keeping them from getting too melty before we landed @ the park was a bit of a problem but they still got snatched up right away!
For those that don't know, I share a birthday w/ Frank Sinatra and although I knew he had roots in Jersey I forgot his birthplace was in Hoboken! So me thinks that since my b-day is on a Saturday this year part of it will be spent in Hoboken just 'cause. :)
Hoboken is also home to Carlo's Bake Shop - aka the Bakery featured on "Cake Boss". It was our first stop for cupcakes and the line was down the block! We heard from locals that prior to the show the place was popular but they've definitely seen business pick up since the show began to air.
As we got closer to the shop I saw that they had models of the cakes that were made in the first episode in the window. And Buddy was posing w/ people for pics and consulting w/ customers as we approached the inside of the bakery.
I decided
to get a beach themed cupcake (see them on the top row of the display to the right.) W/ all those customers there certainly isn't time for dilly-dallying in decisions - you kinda need to know what you want asap. They've got plenty of staff on hand to assist people and keep the line moving!Next stop, was Sweet. A cute little cupcake shop that was much calmer than Carlo's and had some tasty looking cupcakes! Cupcakes had been preordered @ "Sweet" for our Meetup and they labeled the box lid to coordinate w/ the cupcakes so you knew exactly which flavor was which. Very simple but clever.
The third stop was supposed to be Crumbs but since most of our time had been taken up in line @ Carlo's and there are Crumbs locations in NYC we decided to move on to the park. Since more than one more park was talked about - I can't remember the park we ended up @ but I can tell you that it wasn't that far from the water!
I tried a couple Sweet mini cupcakes but quickly became overdosed on "Sweet" so decided to save my Carlo's Bake Shop cupcake for later.
Now that I know Hoboken isn't as far away as I thought I definitely want to go back and explore more than cupcakes! :)
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